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Highlights.Nichtduale(n) Highlights,
edited by Hans Schulz. The home page is at http://nonduality.com/hlghome.htm.
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"To enter deeply into meditation is to enter into
the mystery of suffering love. It is to encounter
the woundedness of our human nature. We are all
deeply wounded from our infancy and bear these
wounds in the unconscious. The repetition of the
mantra is a way of opening these depths of the
unconsciousness and exposing them to light. It is
first of all to accept our woundedness and thus
to realize that this is part of the wound of
humanity. All the weaknesses we find in ourselves
and all the things that upset us, we tend to try
to push aside and get rid of. But we cannot do
this. We have to accept that "this is me" and
allow grace to come and heal it all. That is the
great secret of suffering, not to push it back
but to open the depths of the unconscious and to
realize that we are not isolated individuals when
we meditate, but are entering into the whole
inheritance of the human family."

"The resurrection does not consist merely of the
appearances of Jesus to his disciples after his
death. Many think that these appearances in
Galilee and Jerusalem are the resurrection. But
they are simply to confirm the faith of the
disciples. The real resurrection is the passing
beyond the world altogether. It is Jesus' passage
from this world to the Father. It was not an
event in space and time, but the passage beyond
space and time to the eternal, to reality. Jesus
passed into reality. That is our starting point.
It is into that world that we are invited to
enter by meditation. We do not have to wait for
physical death, but we can enter now into that
eternal world. We have to go beyond the outer
appearances of the senses and beyond the concepts
of the mind, and open ourselves to the reality of
Christ within, the Christ of the resurrection.".

Daily Dharma

"Furthermore, Enlightenment, Self Realization, does
not belong to anyone either....Although it may occur
in virtually any context - Buddhist, Christian, Yogic,
Sufi, Hindu, Fourth Way, Muslim, Taoist, Jewish,
Wiccan, 12-Step work, shamanistic, agnostic,
scientific and so on, Spiritual Awakening, the
Realization of Emptiness, the Tao, cannot be owned.
How could That which is infinite be possessed by any
religion, tradition, path, lineage, teacher, or
hierarchy, all of which are limited? Is God a
Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim? Is Enlightenment
controlled by Buddhists or Yogis or Hindus? How could
That which is formless be made to conform to any set
of assumptions about liberation, past or future?
....Is truth a really a matter of subjective opinion?
Is not truth, if that word means anything at all, an
ongoing process of careful observation and
uncompromised, undefended honesty?

It's time we stop pretending, subtly or overtly, that
our particular group is superior in some way. That's a
hidden way of saying, 'I'm superior,' (and therefore
not inferior). Let's bring our woundedness, our
childhood fears and hurts of inferiority, covered over
by the pretense of individual or collective
superiority, to a total and absolute halt. Completely.
Now. If we need to weep, then let's weep together. And
let those tears of shame be tears of relief, tears of
joy, in finally putting down this burden of trying to
defend and justify what we have imagined ourselves to
be. What doesn't exist doesn't need to be defended. It
never did."

"Food and meals - regardless of whether they were
holiday meals or not - were considered sacred in
biblical times, both in Hebrew and Christian
traditions," said the Rev. Susan
Patterson-Sumwalt, senior pastor at United
Methodist Church of Whitefish Bay. "That's a
different perspective than our driving through
McDonald's."

Sharing food and drink is a fundamental part of
life. "These are ways in which we grow in our
love for each other and for God," said Milwaukee
Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan. "It became
sacred when Jesus used the context of the
Passover to give Christians the greatest prayer
and banquet of all."

Teaching meals The Last Supper actually was the
culmination of many teaching meals for Jesus,
Dolan said.

Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding
banquet, when, at the request of his mother, he
turned water into wine because the wine had run
out. He also fed a multitude of 5,000 with five
loaves and two fishes, revealing himself as the
great provider, Dolan noted.

He shared meals with sinners and brought marginal
people into the center through meals, added
Father Michael G. Witczak, rector and professor
of liturgical studies at the Archdiocese's St.
Francis Seminary.

The first thing Jesus did after calling the
despised tax collector Matthew to be a disciple
was to share a meal with him, Witczak said.

"At one basic level, people ate at these meals,"
Witczak said. "But there were moments for
teaching. The dominant theme is reconciliation."

Even though the Gospels are silent on exactly
what was served, the Last Supper is believed to
have been a traditional Passover seder, blending
symbolic foods and ancient prayers to tell the
story of the Jews' deliverance from slavery.
Gospel accounts mention only the Passover bread
and wine.

Witczak said there's a significant parallel
between the book of Exodus - which describes the
gathering of Israelites for a meal as the angel
of death passed over them at Passover - and the
Gospels that describe Jesus gathering his
disciples for the Passover seder to foretell his
betrayal and death, which laid the foundation for
Christianity.

The New Testament offers few details about the
Last Supper, saying only that it took place in
the upper room of a private home inside walled
Jerusalem around the time of the Passover. Three
of the Gospels say the Last Supper was the
Passover seder; one says Jesus died the day
before the seder.

At the table Biblical scholars still debate
details of the meal, and especially Leonardo da
Vinci's famous painting that depicts it. In the
da Vinci painting, the celebrants are seated
along one side of an elegant, linen-covered
banquet table.

Some scholars say it's most likely that the
disciples lounged on low couches around small
round tables, as was customary at the time, and
not at a banquet table.

The disciples casually leaned against one another
as they passed a cup of red wine, and used their
fingers to eat from a communal platter, suggests
Kitty Morse, author of "A Biblical Feast: Foods
From the Holy Land."

If it was a seder, the meal began with the
telling of the Passover story - a ritual that by
then was 1,000 years old, Witczak said. They
would have recalled the slavery in Egypt, the
visit by the angel of death, and the Exodus.

The mood was troubled and sorrowful as Jesus
prepared his disciples for his impending death,
giving thanks for the bread and the cup, and
offering them as signs of his sacrifice and
eventual return.

Remembering the supper Much of modern day Holy
Week is occupied with setting the place, if not
the table, for that Last Supper.

Tonight, area churches will mark the Last Supper
with a variety of approaches.

Dolan will participate in a 7 p.m. Mass of the
Lord's Supper and washing of feet at the
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 812 N.
Jackson St. At Mequon United Methodist Church,
tables will be set up in the form of a cross for
a candlelight service at 7:30 p.m. Re-enactments
of the Last Supper, visually based on da Vinci's
painting, are set for 7:30 p.m. at both Salem
United Methodist Church in Salem, and the United
Methodist Church of Whitefish Bay. Other churches
are hosting Christian seders that blend rituals
of the seder with the Last Supper, including
Village Church, 130 E. Juneau Ave., starting at 6
p.m. Hospitality, like the kind Jesus modeled at the
Last Supper, is woven into Middle Eastern
culture, when visitors are welcomed into the
inner sanctums of homes. It is central to
Judaism.

"The Jews can teach much about proclaiming a
'table spirituality,' having for centuries
celebrated their religious feasts and holy days
around the altar of the family table," Holly
Whitcomb, a United Church of Christ pastor and
spiritual retreat director from Elm Grove, writes
in her book, "Feasting With God: Adventures in
Table Spirituality."

During the seder, the head of the household
reclines at the table, dramatizing freedom. The
youngest child asks the crucial question, "Why is
this night different from all the other nights?"
and is answered by the Haggadah, the book that
leads them through the table service. By
remembering the Exodus with symbolic foods at the
family table, the story is preserved and passed
down from one generation to the next.

"One of the beautiful things about Judaism is
that its rituals are not confined to the
synagogue," writes Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald,
founder and director of the National Jewish
Outreach Program in New York City. "Passover is a
perfect example of how Jewish tradition is
integrated into the home and family life."

Some Christians find a connection to Jesus' last
meal by preparing elements of his Last Supper for
Communion. Even Communion wine may be homemade.

Gale Guenther of West Allis makes Communion wine
in his basement rec room for eight area Lutheran
churches. The amateur winemaker has been donating
70 to 80 gallons of Communion wine each year
since 1990, when be began supplying his own
congregation at Mount Hope Lutheran Church in
West Allis.

"I've been very blessed all my life, and have
received many good things from many people,"
Guenther said. "Now it's my time to reciprocate.
It is a blessing for me to be a part of
Communion."